Close to Midnight on Halloween, Thurrock Paranormal returned to the Bell Inn footpath. The last time the team had been here none of us felt that we could ever go back, but yet it seemed that we knew we had to return.

On the last investigation of the footpath, Steve (one of the Mediums) had picked up on several spirits. But it was the spirits at the end of the footpath that had interested us more. Last time Steve felt that he did not want to get involved with them as they were so bad, he had picked up on an attack on a young woman halfway down the foot path but felt that the field at the end of the footpath held the key to the events. (On that first visit the footpath was too overgrown for us to reach the field).
During the day I had been to the end of the footpath to see if it was now possible for us to reach the field, in fact what I found was that the footpath had been recently cut back and was clear but very muddy.

As the team gathered at the start of the footpath a neighbour of the house next to the Bell came up to us. He said "I hope you are not going down there". When we told him who we were he explained that he had never liked the footpath, he said that his garage was halfway down the path on the other side of the fence, there was a gate there but he would never use it as he feared the footpath too much. Last time we had been here it was around the area of the gate that Phil had felt that someone was right behind him and was following him.

We started to walk down the footpath, in fact we walked right down the path to the field, we all looked at each other, we could not believe that we had not felt anything. Was the last time all in our minds?

Steve and Elaine stood in the field behind the Bell, this is were Steve had not wanted to come last time due to the bad energy that he was picking up on, but right now he told us there was nothing, in fact it was quite pleasant. We all stood looking at the view over Stanford le Hope.
After a while Steve started to walk down the left hand side of the field, his pace quickened, he said that at last he was picking up on energy, it was of a young girl and he was being taken to a place of significance.

After about a metre down the field, Steve stopped and said that he had felt a warm spot. This warm spot had also been felt by others in the team at the same time, Steve believed that this is the spot were the young lady had met her end. Phil used the dowsing rods to see if he could pick anything up. When he used them he found that they would always cross over as he reached the warm area. Elaine said that she felt someone had been dragged here.

I told Steve and Elaine about some research I had done after the last investigation, about a young lady who had been found murdered in Ship Lane in Aveley. The police believe that she had been killed elsewhere and been dumped in Ship Lane. There had been a link with Horndon-on-the-Hill, a car that had been seen in the area of Ship Lane on the night of the murder had also been seen in Hordon on the same night. No- one had ever been caught for the murder and the case is still unsolved.

As I told Steve this he become very emotional and his eyes started to fill with tears, he said that he felt that what I had just told him was right and the energy around this area was happy that this had been recognised.

The Red Dot shows where the Team stood on the night

The link with the body of the young lady had been very hard to track down. An old local resident of Horndon had told me about people talking about the murder at the time but the owners of the Bell had no knowledge of any police asking questions about the car in the area.
Looking back at old papers in the local museum I was able to find the report at the time.

It was now after Midnight and I thought we had got all that we were going to get for the night so we started to head back. We got to the top of the field and we thought we would try to see if we could pick up on any of the other events that had meant to have happened here. We know that Thomas Higbed had been burnt at the stake here and it is also rumoured that Anne Boleyn had been buried here. Anne Boleyn's remains had been found by London Wall a few years ago but from what I have been told a part of her body was not there. I believe that this was her head. It was a custom in the day for the heads to be snatched back by relatives of the be-headed and returned to their family for burial. Anne Boleyn's parents owned a hall in Fobbing only a mile or so from Hordon. Could her head have been on its way home when someone had to bury it in a hurry? This is the rumour that circulates around Hordon-on-the-Hill.

Phil was using the dowsing rods to find the spot at which Thomas was burnt at the stake but he was not getting the answer we were wishing for, the rods seemed to be telling him that Thomas was not burnt in this area. Elaine was using a pendant to find if Anne Boleyn had been buried here. I was quite surprised at the answers, the pendant seemed to be saying "yes", when asked if parts of her where buried here.
I have always believed there had not been much truth in the tale but I could be wrong.

We headed back to the footpath all expecting to feel nothing, as soon as we got near the footpath Steve said he was picking up an energy and as he said this the battery on the video camera dropped from 40 minutes left to 2 minutes left. After changing the battery we carried on.

We all agreed the footpath now had a different feel about it.

As we headed back down the footpath, Mark (who had not been on the previous investigation of the footpath), said that he felt as if someone was right behind him. Mark was the last one to come back down the footpath like Phil was last time and it seems the same thing was happening.

We stopped and walked back to where Mark first felt this feeling, he said as we walked down the footpath he felt as if someone just joined the line. As we stood there I begin to feel uncomfortable, I noticed that we were by the gate to the garage, this is where the neighbour had said he'd felt uncomfortable too. The feeling eased off, and we started to walk back but we had not got far when the feeling started to pick back up, Steve said this was connected to the young lady and said the energy did not like us being here and wanted us out of the area.

Phil and Steve said they could feel a tightening of their throats, at the same time Mark said he was feeling very hot, almost burning, on his back. I was starting to feel a pain in my leg as if it was burning but I also felt as if I had been hit on the head, these effects from the energy seemed to peek and ease off, Phil had Seemed to be having trouble in breathing but this also eased off . Steve believes this is the person that had committed the murder.

 

As Steve was talking, I had the strangest experience; I felt as if a glass box had been placed over me, I felt cut off from the team and the box was getting smaller, my back was hurting so much it was beginning to get hard to breath, I told myself to step back. Was I really feeling this? Was this just some kind of group hysteria?…..the answer came very quickly, Yes, this feeling was real. I had to move from were I was standing, when I moved Mark and Phil said they felt a cold spot were I had been standing but as they moved their hands down they could feel a hot spot.

Steve believes that this spirit was mentally disturbed in some way and that his thought process did not work in the way ours did. As we were talking I saw a light behind us, back down towards the field. Steve said the spirit did not like the undergrowth being cleared and all of a sudden the footpath became very dark and the atmosphere changed again. As the other team members talked about how dark the footpath was becoming I was about to have another experience that I would never forget, it only lasted for a few seconds and I did not say anything to the team at the time, but I felt as if the whole footpath was alive with the spirit of this evil person.

He was blaming me for bringing everyone here, he knew it was me that had decided that we should go back, he knew that I had been there during the day and he had seen me, I was aware that we were never going to see him as he was now the footpath in whole, this seems a very strange thing to be putting in this report but I feel that if I never speak about it that it will play on my mind forever and it might cloud my judgement on other investigations.

I keep a very open mind and try to find a natural explanation for every thing that happens on an investigation, only then will I look for a paranormal explanation...but this was different, this spirit knew how I felt and it was if he was saying to me, "You want to know if there is such thing as Ghosts, well here you go take that".
In my past, I have met some nasty people and some truly evil people but this spirit was far superior to them, this sprit had complete control on how we felt in the footpath and what would happen to us and he was not shy in letting me know that either.
I did not hear his voice in any way but he did not need to talk directly to me, he had made things very clear to me by feelings alone.

I would not tell the team of this for some weeks after the investigation, In fact it was almost 5 weeks before I could even look back at the tape of the footpath.

On the night I carried on standing with the team and continued as if nothing had happened.As we stood on the footpath we could see the it was still getting even darker it also seemed as if a shape was starting to form, Phil and mark could both see arms starting to appear in the darkness, Phil was egging the Spirit on to manifest but the footpath seemed to start to get lighter and the shape disappeared. The team now moved out of the footpath and stood at the end, I was trying not to show how much I was shaking. As we stood at the end of the footpath I filmed back up the path behind us, I was sure that I could see a dark shape on the footpath, and I was sure someone was just standing there looking back at us., I had not mentioned this to any of the team but Phil was standing behind me and he exclaimed that he could see a figure standing on the footpath, I confirmed to him that this was what I could also see, Sadly but not unexpectedly the figure was not seen on the filming when the tape was played back .
Steve said that when he had been on the footpath he was picking up mixed emotions from the spirit, he said that the spirit had shown some guilt and remorse for what he had done.

Steve said he believed that the man had taken the young lady down the footpath and had tried to come onto her sexually but she had rejected him, when she had done this he lashed out at her, but had not meant to kill her.

Mark and Dave walked back down the footpath but it was not long before they came running back down again as they had felt as if they were not alone there.

There was something else that had happened, when we were making our way back to the footpath from the field, the torch had died, it was completely flat.
After the events on the footpath we started to make our way back to the street, Steve turned the torch back on and it was completely full, in fact it did not need to be charged for another few weeks after we had used it on the investigation.

For some, what had just happened to me on that investigation would be enough to convince them that all ghosts and spirits existed, for me this is not so, yes I believe that I had felt something very paranormal on that footpath but this does not mean that all ghost tales are true. I will carry on investigating them…but maybe just maybe I believe it all a little bit more now.